The present invention relates to an optical bench fiber optic transmitter or a receiver optical subassembly for use in fiber optic communication systems. More specifically, but without limitation, the present invention relates to a transmitter, and a receiver optical subassembly with vertical cavity surface emitting laser power monitoring and optical time domain reflectrometry functionality.
Laser diode power monitoring is often used to control and monitor output power and modulation parameters of a laser diode inside a transmitter package. Laser power monitoring can also be used in conjunction with receiver signal strength indication to report the health characteristics in fiber optic links. In particular, laser power monitoring may be used to determine, isolate and find faults in avionics fiber optic links.
Previous methods to find faults in fiber optic cables utilize a silicon optical bench based digital laser transmitter optical subassembly that enables both digital optical communication and optical time domain reflectrometry. These optical subassembly configurations, however, do not allow vertical cavity surface emitting laser power monitoring or edge emitting laser diode power monitoring in optical subassemblies configured for isolating faults down to the fiber optic transmitter, receiver, and cable plant level.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for monitoring the optical power of both vertical cavity surface emitting and edge emitting laser diodes in optical subassemblies configured for isolating faults down to the fiber optic transmitter, receiver, and cable plant level.